


Take To The Stage

by chasing_the_sterek



Series: in the wings [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Caught in the Act, Empty Theatres, Gen, Hamlet - Freeform, John is a Good Actor, John is far too excited about being alone on a stage, References to Macbeth, Shakespeare, The Scottish Play, bring thy own goggles, but who cares, i think im funny, im not, or it could be an aspiring romance, same tbh, that is the question, theatres, this could be just a rad bromance, to be or not to be?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2019-01-05 12:24:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12189948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasing_the_sterek/pseuds/chasing_the_sterek
Summary: John Watson is onstage.It's an empty theatre, the whole place silent and dark. Its rows of chairs are the kind of dusky red you see in films, repeating endlessly into the darkness, and John Watson stands alone onstage and thinks only of how he'd loved drama in secondary school but had given it up in Sixth Form to pursue medicine.Sherlock is gone, left already for Scotland Yard or something like that. Nobody is here. John is alone.Onstage.///Hamlet, hidden talents, and empty theatres full of empty seats.





	Take To The Stage

**Author's Note:**

> Don't ask me where this came from, because I don't know. Hamlet's _to be or not to be_ speech has always been my favourite Shakespeare soliloquy, though I've never actually ever got around to reading the play in full, and I've never stumbled across a bootleg.
> 
> Feel free to treat this as crack. I wrote it in about ten minutes, and two minutes out of those were spent searching for prints of the soliloquy to have a look at what people did with it.
> 
> I'm British, so this shouldn't need Brit-picking, but if you spot anything don't hesitate to holler.
> 
> Also, as a side note - I don't understand American schools. I will never pretend to understand American schools. But Sixth Form is higher education entered into at sixteen, which lasts for two years. You can, instead of Sixth Form, go to college or straight into work, but if you go then after your two years are up you can go to university, college, an apprenticeship, or straight into work again. By that time you'll be eighteen. In, Sixth Form, you take three or four subjects and focus on them equally. I don't know what the American equivalent for that is. Majors?

John Watson is onstage.

It's an empty theatre, the whole place silent and dark. Its rows of chairs are the kind of dusky red you see in films, repeating endlessly into the darkness, and John Watson stands alone onstage and thinks only of how he'd loved drama in secondary school but had given it up in Sixth Form to pursue medicine.

Sherlock is gone, left already for Scotland Yard or something like that. Nobody is here. John is alone.

Onstage.

He shakes his head. Repeating himself will get him nowhere, will just waste the time he has up here before someone comes in and says, "What are you doing? Get off our stage!"

A smile twitches to his lips, unbidden. This was his dream for a long time, there's no way he can waste it now. But if John doesn't want to waste it, then he needs to do something pretty grand while he's up here.

His mind stirs up a memory of Hamlet. Not that it had been a production at his school, or that there had been a trip to see it - John had watched a bootleg, once or twice.

He taps his lips absently with one finger, shifting his weight onto one leg as he tries to remember all of it. A soliloquy? It's a fairly famous one. He used to know it by heart, so he shouldn't mess it up, but overconfidence and repressed nerves have never mixed well for him.

 _Just go for it,_ he thinks, and then, _how does it begin, exactly?_

"The questi-" he begins. He cuts himself off immediately with a slight grimace. "No, that's wrong. Opening line, you know this, come on, Watson."

Start over.

"To be or not to be, that is the question, whether it is nobler - _ugh,"_ he adds, with feeling. "The cadence isn't right. How does it start?"

Start over. Clear your throat, throw your voice.

"To be, or not to be?" Yes, that's right. "That is the question - whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the arrows and slings, oh sod this, bloody hell."

Definitely not right, not that he needs to say it aloud. But he has the feel of it now, remembers the rhythms of the words, the shapes of them in his mouth as he says them.

He almost wishes he had Sherlock's skull.

Start over.

_"To be, or not to be? That is the question -_  
_"Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer_  
_"The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,_  
_"Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,"_

John is pacing. Apparently, the distinct lack of any props or costumes is not an issue, and he finds himself gesturing along. There might even be a couple of facial expressions thrown in, too, but then John has always been very much a method actor at heart.

_"And, by opposing, end them? To die, to sleep -"_

His voice is rising.

_"No more - and by a sleep to say we end_  
_"The heart ache and a thousand natural shocks_  
_"That flesh is hair to - 'tis a consummation_  
_"Devoutly to be wished!"_

He softens himself, slips into thoughtful murmurings rather than wild gesticulations. He slows to a halt, centre stage without knowing it, and taps at the leg of his jeans.

When he continues, he doesn't even notice the spotlight.

_"To die, to sleep._  
_"To sleep, perchance to dream -"_

\- a scoff -

_"Ay, there's the rub,_  
_"For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come_  
_"When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,_  
_"Must give us pause. There's the respect_  
_"That makes calamity of so long a life."_

The words soar through the little theatre - John is moving again -

_"For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,_  
_"Th'opressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,"_

He ticks the troubles off on steady fingers, matches his voice to them and moulds his body language to fit as well -

_"The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,_  
_"The insolence of office, the spurns_  
_"That patient merit of th'unworthy takes,_  
_"When he himself might his quietus make_  
_"With a bare bodkin?"_

The words echo and fade and he slips into a stage whisper, slips into soft admittances and gifts his speech the kind of tone becoming of questions asked late at night.

_"Who would fardels bear,_  
_"To grunt and sweat under a weary life,_  
_"But that dread of something after death,_  
_"The undiscovered country from whose bourn_  
_"No traveller returns, puzzles the will_  
_"And makes us rather bear those ills we have_  
_"Than fly to others that we know not of?"_

He grows again, rises fully out of the slight hunch of those departing a secret and into one of those announcing something to a roomful of people, though the empty seats do not gaze back.

_"Thus, conscience does make cowards of us all,"_

John's lips twitch, a rare out-of-character moment spared for amusement Hamlet would not share.

_"Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,_  
_"And enterprises of great pith and moment_  
_"With this regard their currents turn awry,_  
_"And lose the name of action."_

John finishes with a twist on his heel, an efficient turn to face the long aisles of utterly deserted theatre.

 _Brilliant,_ he thinks, heart pounding and lungs slightly out of breath, and then figures, in for a penny, in for a pound.

Entirely out of both character and energy, John hums softly and says, _Soft you now, the fair Ophelia - nymph, in thy orisons, be all my sins remembered."_

He smiles and laughs, onstage and alone and filled to the brim with levity that makes him just start to giggle when -

"Good my lord," someone answers, "how does your honour for this many a day?"

John gasps, pulse racing, and there is Sherlock, sitting in the front row and smiling up at him.

"Jesus Christ," John squeaks, abruptly back on earth. The spotlight (when did that happen?) is hot and bright and probably does absolutely nothing to hide his rising flush of embarrassment.

Sherlock is lit up enough from the phone resting in his lap to show most of his impish expression. "Afraid not, just Shakespeare. Though there are many who have likely made the same mistake."

"I didn't know you were here."

"Evidently," Sherlock says, clambering up from the audience. He taps his phone a few times and the spotlight sinks into the rising illumination of the entire stage. "I'm almost glad for it, given I got to see that lovely soliloquy."

"Bloody hell," John hisses, shaking his head. "You saw all of it, didn't you?"

"I came in just as you were attempting to decide what to say. I commend you on your decision, though I had to Google it."

John eyes him for that. "You didn't recognise Hamlet?"

"It cannot be outside of your belief that some things slip my mind occasionally," Sherlock shrugs, pocketing his phone. His eyes are still bright with a cocktail of emotions. This certainly won't be the end of this. "I also wanted to see how much you got right."

"Many mistakes, I'm sure," John says.

"Not so many, actually. The worst you did was swap out the odd _the_ for an _a."_

It's not unheard of, and not the worst mistake to make. John's pretty happy with it, especially considering he took a while to get his head back around it after about twenty years of not needing to remember any of Hamlet's soliloquy at all, let alone all of it. Still, John has done better, and he's sure the inflictions and inflections and tones and whatever other nonsense was entirely off.

Sherlock is watching him. "I wasn't aware you'd enjoyed drama as a student."

"Hm," John says thoughtfully. He's surprised Sherlock couldn't deduce it from the wearing on his left shoe in one of his old school photos Sherlock is bound to have seen. "I'm surprised you didn't deduce it from the wearing on my left shoe in one of my old school photos. I'm sure you've probably got into them at some point."

Sherlock blinks. "What school photos?"

"Oh. Um. Never mind - why are you here, anyway? I thought you'd gone to Scotland Yard."

"I texted you." Sherlock considers him again. "I'm going to presume you were already under the spell of the stage by that point?"

John shrugs helplessly. It's true. "My phone's over there." He points to an old hatstand that, in all likelihood, was probably just an abandoned prop. His cost is hung up on it. When he walks over, his phone has three missed calls and seven unread texts messages, although to be fair to Sherlock one of the calls and two of the texts were from Harry.

"How come you never pursued acting?" Sherlock has followed him over.

John shrugs, clicking through Harry's texts. _ur a selfish prick. I cant believe u left me to drown m liver in alcohol agn,_ or something along those lines, and _ur fault clara left me right? must be. she's a bitch and ur a bastard. made 4 e/o._ Pretty classic.

 _I've never left you to die of alcohol poisoning, Clara is a lesbian, and I'm not interested,_ he texts back. _You're drunk. Do I need to come over?_

"You didn't object to her name-calling," Sherlock frowns. "You're not a bastard. Nor are you even remotely selfish."

"Thanks, Sherlock," John says, completely unchanged on the subject. A text packed full of drunken vitriol comes chiming in just as he turns up the sound again, and he sighs. "Duty calls. Do you wanna tag along, or go home?"

"If I help with Harry, will you do Macbeth?"

John winces infinitesimally. Sherlock laughs.

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to my sister, by the way, for helping me with the "layot". Conversations with her are always good for a funny mispronunciation or two.
> 
>  
> 
> Also, yes, I should definitely be working on other things. But I'm not dead, as much as my recent headaches have been making me wish I was, and that's a good thing! Take this piece of s-


End file.
